Boston College to meet Virginia Tech for a rare second time this season

Sunday

Nov 25, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 25, 2007 at 6:23 PM

There have been many, many indelible moments during the college football season, maybe more this year than any in the game's history. One was provided by Boston College when it played Virginia Tech on a rainy Thursday night in Blacksburg at the end of October.

Eric Avidon

There have been many, many indelible moments during the college football season, maybe more this year than any in the game's history.

One was provided by Boston College when it played Virginia Tech on a rainy Thursday night in Blacksburg at the end of October. Trailing 10-7 with the clock ticking down in the fourth quarter, senior quarterback Matt Ryan rolled to his left, away from pressure. After what seemed an eternity, he planted quickly and fired back across the field to his right.

There, senior running back Andre Callender cradled Ryan's pass in the back of the end zone for the game-winning touchdown with just seconds remaining.

Ryan raced to the BC sideline where he went to chest-bump coach Jeff Jagodzinski. Jagodzinski ran at Ryan, ready to either hug his quarterback or high-five him. The two came together with their different celebratory ideas and wound up in a blissful heap on the field, Ryan falling on top of his coach.

BC, now 10-2 and 11th in the BCS standings, will play No. 6 Virginia Tech (10-2) a second time, this coming Saturday in the ACC Championship Game in Jacksonville.

"It's a good thing we play 60 minutes," Jagodzinski said jokingly during a conference call yesterday, his team's win over Miami on Saturday already a distant memory.

For Virginia Tech, which had to beat Virginia on Saturday afternoon to win the ACC's Coastal Division, the title game represents an opportunity to right what it feels was a wrong.
Following the loss to BC, the Hokies said they wanted another a crack at the Eagles. They dominated for nearly 56 minutes that night, and led 10-0 when BC got the ball with just more than four minutes left in the game. Then came a touchdown drive, onside kick and another touchdown drive and BC had the win.

"You have to be careful what you wish for," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said during yesterday's conference call. "I think a lot of us, after Boston College got us in the last couple of minutes, said we'd like to meet those guys again. But now that it's time to beat them you have to figure out a way to beat them. And that's not easy."

There's motivation for BC as well - beyond the obvious of wanting a victory in order to win the league title game and advance to the Orange Bowl. Despite beating Virginia Tech, there were those first 56 often atrocious minutes. The Eagles won with four minutes of brilliance.

"We can't turn the ball over," Jagodzinski said. "Because of our style of offense I think the (rainy) weather had a lot do with (how we played). We like to throw the football. But defensively, Virginia Tech is as good as there is in the country. They do a great job with their scheme. They're probably the best defensive-coached football team that we've played this year.

"We just ended up making plays at the end of the game that we weren't making for the majority of the game."

Playing an opponent for a second time in one season is a unique situation for both teams.

Jagodzinski, who is in his first year as BC's head coach after a lengthy stint as an assistant coach in the National Football League, is familiar with playing teams twice in the same season from those years in pro football, while Beamer has never coached against the same team twice in one year.

"Familiarity is a good thing and a bad thing," Jagodzinski said. "I don't think it's going to be any surprise to us what they're going to do on defense and I don't think it's going to be any surprise to them what we do on defense, and vice versa with the offenses. I just think the familiarity is the biggest thing on both sides. It's a positive and a negative."

One major difference - beyond the neutral site - this time around will be the presence of Virginia Tech's freshman quarterback Tyrod Taylor.

Sean Glennon was the starter at the beginning of the season but was benched in favor of Taylor after Virginia Tech lost to LSU. Before the BC game, however, Taylor suffered a high ankle sprain and Glennon played against the Eagles.

Since Taylor has returned, the two have split time under center, and the Hokies have thrived.

"We've got to have a game plan for each guy," Jagodzisnki said. "Each guy poses different challenges. One guy is a thrower (Glennon) and one guy is a scrambler (Taylor) who can make things go with his legs. ... There's a reason that they're in the championship game."

"The way we're doing it is working," Beamer said. He added that, "certainly we're in a better position offensively than we were the last time."

Five days from now, perhaps Taylor or Glennon, or maybe Ryan and Callender again, will provide yet another memorable moment in a season that's been full of them.